Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research programme, only until 11pm Friday 29 March, 2019, then there will be a need for a UK version as well
Logicalis lands mega air traffic computer deal. Yes, that Logicalis
Troubled integrator biz Logicalis has scooped itself a contract to supply the UK's main air traffic control firm with key IT infrastructure equipment and services. The new kit will be used as part of NATS' contribution to the Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research programme (SESAR), which aims to fit more aircraft …
COMMENTS
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Monday 27th November 2017 18:47 GMT Cynic_999
Quite feasible
Air traffic control is in fact something that lends itself perfectly to some comprehensive computer algorithms. All (IFR) aircraft are flying known (expected) directions, speeds and altitudes, with very, very few aircraft deviating significantly from what is expected. All positions, speeds and altitudes are reported at short intervals to ATC so any such deviations can be very quickly detected and dealt with. All ATC actions are taken in accordance with a fixed set of straightforward rules.
You'd need human oversight to deal with the completely unexpected and the occasional emergency, but 99.99% of operations could easily be controlled by computer - probably more safely than a human approach, area or tower controller in fact, because a computer will not get fixated on one unusual situation and fail to spot another situation developing. Ground operations are far less predictable, and so ground control is probably still best handled by a human.
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Tuesday 28th November 2017 18:32 GMT Cynic_999
Re: Quite feasible
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This would be unworkable on approach and departure at busy airports/terminal areas.
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Why? Vectoring & scheduling moving objects so that they fit into a pattern is perfectly suited to a computer algorithm - it should be able to perform better than a human controller in that respect.
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Monday 27th November 2017 23:50 GMT Anonymous Coward
Unreliable, unpredictable - and controlling your planes.
You're a bit late in the day, Logicalis have been on this for about 18 months!
This is a doomed f***-up of a project designed to run a generic compute internal cloud for what were previously stove-piped systems. It started off at 3-sites and with no lessons learned expanded to 5 sites at huge expense. In the middle of this NATS sacked their Head Architect - always a good sign!
Apparently no-one has any idea if the new apps will run fast enough, whether the datalinks are good enough or how your agile cloud can be changed without buggering everything else up. But then that's the cloud.
There's a stack of expensive kit but whether its good enough to run air-traffic management services on no-one has a clue. Betting is a complete primary systems failure twice in the first five years. Thankfully the big planes have ACAS so that should cut down on deaths.
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Tuesday 28th November 2017 13:10 GMT Chrissy
Re: Unreliable, unpredictable - and controlling your planes.
ACAS? The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service ?
(Although I see Wikipedia has an article on ACAS as "Airborne collision avoidance system"... not sure how that relates to TCAS, unless TCAS is considered a type of ACAS , or ACAS is the newer more generic term?)
TCAS... Traffic Collision Avoidance System
See also FLARM for the little itty bitty planes and gliders
and GPWS
Or how about we just use CAS, as that covers any collision into any thing.
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